Freelance bassist, world music composer, and member of Kina Zoré and more.

Check out my new world music album, "Forces of Nature," now available for free download on galenwillett.bandcamp.com.

Released April 29, 2012, this album documents my 2-year world music project "Forces of Nature." My compositions for the group blend grooves, harmonic structures, and melodic patterns from West Africa, North Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean and use them as a framework for improvisation. The album features “De Marrakesh à Dakar,” which combines Moroccan-inspired melodies with rhythms from Senegal and some jazz arranging and reharmonization.

You can read all about it and listen to it on http://www.galenwillett.com/2012/04/29/fon-album.

For over a decade, Kina Zore has brought jubilation to hundreds of dance floors across North America with award-winning songwriting and virtuosic instrumental performances. Kina Zoré is Mozambican native Helder Tsinine's vehicle for preserving the beautiful and endangered cultures of Mozambique. After Mozambique's independence from the colonial Portuguese in 1975, a 15-year civil war afflicted the country with violence, illness, and poverty. Fortunate to live in the city away from war, Helder's family housed refugees from all over the country who shared different cultures, languages, and music. Many of Tsinine's song lyrics depict critical social issues - war, HIV/AIDS, famine and more - that continue to affect Mozambicans and many others all over the world.

Kine Zoré was honored to be invited to play for current Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi. Helder's original song, "Va Gumulelana (They Are Fighting)" won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest Grand Prize. The band has shared the stage with Angelique Kidjo, the Skatalites, Red Baraat, Zap Mama, Debo Band, Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars and Jazzmeia Horn. Kina Zoré has toured in numerous major locales in North America.

ONEoverZERO brings a unique blend of original groove-oriented live hip-hop, funk and world beat straight from the Green Mountains of Vermont.  One over zero is infinitely undefinable.  With each of the 7 band members having vastly different cultural and musical backgrounds, ONEoverZERO is a musical melting pot. Each of the band members meshes their own unique style in with the others' to create the unique sound that is ONEoverZERO.  With funk, hip-hop, jazz, world beat and reggae influences from the east coast of the US, the Caribbean and North to West Africa; the collective experience is infinitely greater and more powerful.  ONEoverZERO's creating infinite feel-good vibes by raising the collective consciousness and making new friends at every turn. 

ONEoverZERO's in the studio this fall and winter working on their debut album (due out in Spring 2012) and will be playing a few select venues and events.

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